I can't put into words how much I despise modern stadium country. It's like the opposite of art. I grew up in the south around people who could only stomach country music like that. Everything else to them was too weird, or not white enough.
The closest analogy to country music are the movies fascists made, like the ones Hans Steinhoff and Goebbels directed. Completely banal plots and lack of artistic value. The only reason they were made as to communicate fascist rhetoric and fulfill a quota of cultural markers.
That's all modern country music is. It's the music of boring middle class white people who feel uneasy if their specific cultural touchstones aren't constantly reinforced. There have to be trucks, land ownership, high school football, generic American jingoism, glorification of alcoholism.
The most common thread in this shit music is that anything outside of a middle class conservative white lifestyle is to be mistrusted. The girl from a small town who goes off to college in a big city, but realizes her home was truly out in the sticks. The song about how country values make a person more virtuous or fun. "Don't go over that hill, don't go looking for anything further." It could possibly be a sweet sentiment if it weren't for the target audience: comfortable white shitheads who drive a $80,000 Ford truck in the suburbs.
At least with propaganda it's the ruling class messaging the citizenry. In this case, at least for the most part seems self-inflicted and without purpose. People just gravitate to whatever fits their identity.
That’s all modern country music is. It’s the music of boring middle class white people who feel uneasy if their specific cultural touchstones aren’t constantly reinforced. There have to be trucks, land ownership, high school football, generic American jingoism, glorification of alcoholism.
Well written.
Oh no, absolutely not is country music self inflicted. Modern country music is part of the same propaganda network as everything else in capitalism. The whole Nashville and Georgia country scenes have been connected at the hip with conservative money since at least the 1970s where Nixon had a country campaign song. Then there was Reagan showing up at the Grand Ole Opry. It's a useful vehicle to spread and satiate the thirst for white supremacy.
There's also Clear Channel Radio (currently iHeartRadio) which is run by ideological conservatives.
Also there's some kind of money floating around to suddenly promote the odd country song or two, like that Rich Men in Richmond song, or that stupid Jason Aldean guy. Every now and then you'll see a random headline like "country star fights back against woke-ness in new song." And that's the propaganda.
Parasites hopping onto a culture to exploit it for their own gains is not really the same as state propaganda. I don't think there's some shadowy group inventing this music to control the masses. Though politicians would no doubt pander to (or even weaponize) a group if they can. And people will absolutely try and profit off it.
It's just a bit of a leap to ascribe low brow music to some grand conspiracy. Or at least if that is, then every culture is a conspiracy.
I guess I don't see much of a distinction between those exploitative parasites and the state actors. I'm on the side of Althusser here, where the state is both a structural arrangement and a set of ideological norms. In that sense, you could say all culture is a conspiracy, as in a conspiracy to replicate the content and character of one's class interests.
I don't mean to say there's a shadowy group creating it, rather, there's a shadowy group that gives a platform and representation to things that promote their own interests. Or something they can flip around and sell back to you. Capitalism is crafty like that, like Che Guevara t-shirts.
Do yourself a favor and listen to the Americana genre. All the blues and western inspired folk, without the bootlicking!
Product placements go in songs.
Now everyone please sing along.
Applebees
KFC
Haliburton
Lockheed
PF Changs
Starbucks
When will the Prolitariat have enough
Of this system that doesn't care
No one on earth needs Billionaires.
It shocked me the first time I met a real anti-Semite, in real life, in Tennessee. I've worked in a lot of places all over the world and I've seen plenty of racism. No one else topped that guy in Tennessee. Other places racism was mostly contained to 'they stay over there and we stay over here.' Tons of problems but living together but apart was possible. That doesn't speak to every experience obviously. That old guy in Tennessee wanted another Holocaust, plain and simple. Anywhere else he'd get the shit kicked out of him, there it was tolerated.
To show how pervasive the racist Southerner stereotype is: I was in Hawaii and met a guy from New Zealand. He noticed my accent and asked where I'm from and this happened:
ME: I'm from North Carolina
HIM: Oh really? Cool! Hey, whaddya call a n****r with a new bicycle?
I guess that's his version of Americans saying "g'day mate!"
What happened next? Was he mocking you or telling a joke that he thought you would enjoy?
What a strange encounter
He thought I would enjoy it. It was a crowded spot, so I just stared disppointedly at him and walked away.
Can confirm. I'm a 6'4 big bearded mountain looking fucker in the Bible belt, and people REGULARLY think "he agrees with me about this painfully mundane thing so surely he agrees with me that trans people need to shut up and dress appropriately (or whatever)" They'll often be saying the quiet part to me out loud within 5 minutes of shooting the bull with a total stranger.
Had someone try to sell me on the merits of the Ku Klux Klan while working at a factory in Tennessee, I was a staunch Libertarian at the time so i guess he thought i might bite, he told me how they helped the community out and kept people safe.... the guy was dead fucking serious, and when I asked him about them being racist he just changed the subject... Still feels like a fever dream...
I drove through Alabama once. That was enough. What a shit stain state? Experience the racism there, even if sort of second hand, was surreal. Sucks I know some people that were forced to move there.
In case anyone didn't get the reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7im5LT09a0
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Twenty hours in and it's up to me to remind people that Dolly Parton is the full package?
- She's got tunes, OK 'I Will Always Love You' is a bit cloying but the rumour is that she also wrote Jolene the same day
- She supports other women. When porn star Julia Parton was around and telling people that she was Dolly's cousin, Dolly's public response was something like, 'She ain't my cousin but I can't condemn what she does... it's not like I ever tried to hide my breasts. Good luck to her.'
- She produced Buffy The Vampire Slayer through her production company Sanddollar. She kept a low profile publicly but behind the scenes was very supportive of the show because it provided good role models for young women.
- She funds the Dolly Parton Imagination library which mails free books to kids under five.
Dolly Parton is a rich theme park owner who has abused her employees and she pals around with mass murderers like George W. Bush.
At a certain point she had credibility. She came from a poor Appalachian background and made music reflecting that. After a certain point though, after decades in the industry, she completely flipped. Her 9 to 5 song used to be a genuine anthem for struggling working class people, then she flipped it a few years ago as "5 to 9" for a Sqaurespace commercial, glorifying the idea of working a second job after your main one.
She's the exact problem of modern country music. It's made and financed by people too rich to be connected to humanity anymore.
I'm going to need a reference on that staff abuse allegation, I've tried Googling but haven't turned up anything.
I don't have a tv so I didn't catch the Squarespace commercial, don't know if it even played in the UK.
I unfortunately see a lot of white guy with a heavy (and fake) country accent does a "redneck" version of a popular rap or hip hop track and seeing other white people say "Now that's how it should be done!"
Modern "country" is a plague and I hate it. Its the only genre I can't listen to.
There’s a YouTube channel called Western AF that has some good tunes that are closer to what country used to be. I can’t vouch for every song but the ones I’ve heard weren’t reactionary garbage.
This banger is how I found out about them.
I've listened to this 5 times in a row, absolutely amazing version.
Thank you for sharing, take my uplemms.
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I guess that's just the next evolution. Old country was basically gospel that wasn't about religion. Country in the 80s and 90s was basically old rock but about cowboys, trucks, beer and being cheated on. I suppose by now you have to transition to the kind of music that was the in thing in the 90s to keep up with being the appropriate number of decades behind.
Is almost the same thing with Brazilian sertanejo. Was once about the bucolic reality in the rural side of the country, now is about bragging about being rich, going to pointless parties and drinking a lot of alcoholic drinks, f-cking everyone...
And listened to by the same people who complain about rap music doing the same thing (in their eyes, anyway).
There was a big, high wall there that tried to stop me A sign was painted said "Private Property" But on the backside, it didn't say nothing This land was made for you and me
I like the stuff that's about people in the shit. Two Cigarettes in The Ashtray, and all that. I'm a big Horton Heat fan, so it makes sense that their stylistic forebears would appeal to me too.
bah gawd its beautiful
